Mumbai braces for Shiv Sena vs Shiv Sena in 3 crucial seats

After the announcement of the two Mumbai seats, three constituencies—Thane, Nashik and Palghar—are left for the two ruling parties to announce their candidates

MUMBAI: After a prolonged tussle between the ruling BJP and Shiv Sena over the remaining six parliamentary seats, the Sena on Tuesday declared its Mumbai North West and Mumbai South candidates: its Jogeshwari MLA Ravindra Waikar and Byculla MLA Yamini Jadhav respectively. Mumbai is now poised for a Sena-versus-Sena fight in three constituencies—Mumbai South, Mumbai South Central and Mumbai North West.

Former special public prosecutor and Mumbai North Central candidate Ujjwal Nikam visited Sahar village for campaigning on Tuesday. (Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times)

After the announcement of the two Mumbai seats, three constituencies—Thane, Nashik and Palghar—are left for the two ruling parties to announce their candidates. The Shiv Sena is expected to get Thane and Nashik while the BJP could get Palghar. The BJP is expected to nominate sitting Sena MP Rajendra Gavit as its candidate, while the Sena is likely to field its sitting MP Hemant Godse from Nashik. With the seat-sharing almost finalised, the final tally is likely to be: Shinde Sena 15 seats; BJP 28 seats and NCP-Ajit Pawar four seats. Parbhani is being contested by the Rashtriya Samaj Party’s Mahadev Jankar, who is an alliance partner of the Mahayuti.

The South Mumbai constituency had three other aspirants—Rahul Narwekar and Mangal Prabhat Lodha of the BJP and Milind Deora (Shiv Sena)—but the internal surveys conducted by the two ruling parties went against them. “We felt that if we fielded a non-Marathi BJP candidate in Lodha, it would have fed into the Marathi-versus-Gujarati card which the Sena (UBT) has been playing in other Mumbai constituencies,” said a Shinde Sena leader.

As far as Narwekar was concerned, the assembly speaker was on the backfoot after his two verdicts on the splits in the Shiv Sena and NCP, added the Shinde Sena leader. “Although he is a Marathi leader, the Thackeray faction would have blamed him for the verdict in favour of the Shinde faction,” he said. “He would not have polled many Marathi votes from the eastern part of the constituency, including Parel, Sewri, Worli and Lalbaug. Muslim voters too would not have voted for a BJP candidate, and this would have resulted in the consolidation of Muslim and Dalit voters in favour of the Sena (UBT).”

As for Deora, the leader said there were doubts if the ex-Congress loyalist who recently joined the Shinde-led Sena could get a significant number of Muslim and Marathi votes owing to his defection to a party which is with the BJP. Mumbai South, with 15,12,331 voters, has roughly 45% Marathi voters, 8% Gujarati-Marwaris, 13% North Indians, and about 19% Muslims.

Another BJP leader said that the Shinde Sena had been unnecessarily pressing for the three Mumbai constituencies, and it would cost the ruling alliance dear. ““They had no candidates in Mumbai South and Mumbai North West but wanted to inflate the number of seats contested by them,” he said. “If there were doubts about the success of Narwekar and Lodha, even Yamini Jadhav is in no better position. She and her husband Yashwant Jadhav are facing Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases, which were registered days before they left the undivided Shiv Sena along with Shinde. This could go against her.”

The leader said that Jadhav had also lost crucial campaigning time owing to the delay in the decision to field her. “Her opponent Arvind Sawant has already completed two rounds of campaigning while Yamini has a mere 18 days left,” he said.

Jadhav is a one-term corporator who won the 2019 assembly polls from Byculla. She belongs to a scheduled caste, and had declared assets of ₹9.9 crore in her election affidavit in 2019. Her husband and former standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav was summoned by the ED in May 2022 in connection with an alleged FERA violation. The preliminary investigation was based on the searches conducted by the income-tax department in properties owned by the Jadhavs. As per the probe, Jadhav had purchased several tenanted flats in Bilakhadi Chambers in Byculla and had allegedly paid one of the tenants, who was in the US, by illegal means.

On being asked the perils of being declared a candidate very late, Jadhav said that the Shiv Sena (UBT) had announced Sawant’s name as it had no candidate but there was a tough competition in the Mahayuti alliance. Speaking to the media, Lodha, who was not chosen for the seat, nevertheless congratulated Jadhav and declared that she would win by a margin of over one lakh votes.

Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said the decision to concede Mumbai South to the Shinde Sena was taken 15 days ago. “We were interested in fighting Mumbai South, and some of our leaders had started preparing for it,” he said. “But the decision that the BJP and Sena would contest three Mumbai seats each was taken long ago.” The undivided Shiv Sena and BJP had contested three Mumbai seats each as part of an arrangement in the 2014 and 2019 elections as well.

The Shinde Sena’s Mumbai North West candidate, Jogeshwari MLA Ravindra Waikar, was a close aide of Shiv Sea (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray till recently. He crossed over to the Shinde-led Sena, as he was on the verge of being arrested by the ED in several cases. Waikar will face Amol Kirtikar of the Shiv Sena (UBT), whose candidature was announced almost a year ago.

The sitting MP from Mumbai North West, Gajanan Kirtikar, who defected to the Shinde Sena last year, refused to contest the seat, as Amol is his son and had been fielded by the Thackeray faction. Following this, Shinde approached actors like Madhuri Dixit, Sachin Khedekar and Sharad Ponkshe to contest but they refused. The Sena also toyed with the idea of fielding actor and former MP Govinda but the BJP’s surveys went against him. Former Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam also wanted the seat, but the BJP was not in favour of him.

Sources in the BJP said that the party was also opposed to giving a ticket to Waikar but Shinde had no option. Incidentally, Waikar’s Sena (UBT) opponent Amol Kirtikar is also facing an ED probe in the khichdi scam.

Meanwhile, the All India Congress Committee cleared the name of Mumbai Congress vice president Bhushan Patil as its candidate from Mumbai North. The party had wanted Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Vinod Ghosalkar or his daughter-in-law Tejasvee Ghosalkar to contest—Vinod’s son and Tejasvee’s husband Abhishek was killed by a notorious criminal Mauris Naronha in February this year, getting the Ghosalkars a lot of sympathy in the Borivali-Dahisar area. However, the Ghosalkars and the Sena (UBT) were not keen on their contesting on a Congress ticket.

Mumbai North, which has a significant number of Gujarati and North Indian voters, has been a BJP stronghold, and the Congress has often struggled to find good candidates here. The last time the party won the seat was in 2004 when actor Govinda contested against veteran BJP leader Ram Naik. In 2019, Congress fielded actor Urmila Matondkar but she lost to the BJP’s Gopal Shetty. This time, the BJP has dropped Shetty and nominated union minister Piyush Goyal, who is a Rajya Sabha MP.

The Congress is contesting two seats in Mumbai: North Central and Mumbai North. In the 2019 election, it had contested five seats and left one for the NCP.

The BJP, on its part, has not renominated any of its three sitting MPs. It has fielded union minister Piyush Goyal in Mumbai North, Mulund MLA Mihir Kotecha in Mumbai North East and senior lawyer Ujjwal Nikam in Mumbai North Central.